


Qui multum habet, plus cupit

by Lizicia



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Series, and not together, brilliant people being lonely and brilliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3257156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizicia/pseuds/Lizicia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hartley Rathaway has never quite understood wanting something, at least not in the way people around him seem to want things. They ask for them, hope for them, try for them and crave all the things which are just outside of their reach. He doesn’t understand wanting because he always goes and takes. That is, until he meets Harrison Wells.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Qui multum habet, plus cupit

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble for Harrison and Hartley because the undertones were there.
> 
> Also posted on FF.net and Tumblr.

Hartley Rathaway has never quite understood wanting something, at least not in the way people around him seem to want things. They ask for them, hope for them, try for them and crave all the things which are just outside of their reach. He doesn’t understand wanting because he always goes and takes.

Wanting is for things you don’t think you can have and for Hartley, everything is his with the minimal effort. He collects trophies and prizes and wins with a practiced ease, never hoping for the first place because he always  _knows_ he can win.

So he goes through the motions, trying and failing to interpret this craving that others seem to have, this capability they possess and always slightly grateful that he has never had to feel that particular emotion. It seems messy and distracting and wholly unnecessary.

That is, until he meets Harrison Wells, the brilliant head of S.T.A.R. Labs who doesn’t treat him like an 18-year-old child prodigy but like a man, a proper adult.

“You are quite brilliant, Mr. Rathaway. Sharp, intuitive, quick. There isn’t quite a mind like yours.”

He shrugs because of course he is all of those things; after all he’s always been more than his peers, has always accepted it, has never found any reason to claim otherwise, to hide from it.

“Come work with me.”

He doesn’t say  _for me_  but  _with me_  and that distinction is more important that Hartlan would ever consider it to be.

“I am going to revolutionize the world of particle physics. I will build a particle accelerator which will bring about more than anyone could even dream of. And you are just the person I would like to have by my side. Do you want to help me with that, Mr. Rathaway?”

He wants to do that and it isn’t messy, it is a clean and good feeling.

They do brilliant work together, like the unstoppable team they can be, crafting new ideas, expanding on the existing knowledge of the universe, creating so much innovative and fantastic that it would seem impossible for anyone else but them.

Hartley likes this sense of ease they have, this camaraderie, this feeling of being maybe the only two people who actually understand what they are talking about.

In a world that has never understood him, there is nothing more pleasing than realizing he doesn’t need the world anyway; he just needs one person.

They find themselves playing chess into the late evenings, Harrison winning almost always and never losing just for his sake but smirking that brilliant smile of his, piercing blue eyes sparkling and the corners of his mouth twitching ever so slightly as he check-mates with ease.

“Victori dantur spolia.”

He has no problem with that.

Harrison teaches him things beyond the scope of books and physics, makes him speak Latin, makes him watch plays and listen to the opera and really understand them, tells him to dress better and take the things he wants.

Hartley has never had trouble taking what is his.

But he watches the agile movements of Harrison’s hands, finds himself recognizing when he is angry but doesn’t want to show it and when he makes a straight face but actually would want to smile, admires the way his suits are cut to perfection and sits up straighter when he hears the sound of his voice ringing out, no matter how far.

And suddenly, with the kind of deafening clarity reserved for breakthroughs and scientific discoveries, Hartley is awash with  _want_.

It annoys him when Harrison talks to others in the lab, when he commends them for a job well done, when he smiles at them a bit too long, when his eyes don’t wander off to find Hartley as often as Hartley’s do when seeking out Harrison.

He wants all of that for himself, he wants to be the only one who can see it, the only one who has the right to even ask for it and something in him rumbles and grows restless.

Hartley Rathaway wants for the first time in his life and there isn’t anything he can do about it.

He is human and he hates it.

**Author's Note:**

> The Latin phrases are:  
> "Victori dantur spolia" or "To the victor go the spoils."
> 
> "Qui multum habet, plus cupit" means "He who has much, desires more."


End file.
